Reference Material

Disclaimer, Copyright

The U.S.S. Mariner is in no way affiliated with, condoned or given any notice by the Seattle Mariners baseball team, who have their own website. Similarly, we have no association with the ownership group or any businesses related to the Mariners. All article text is written by the authors, all pictures are taken by the authors, who retain copyright to their works. No copying or reproduction of any content here, photographic or otherwise, is authorized. Please email us if you wish to reproduce our work.

Minor League Wrap (5/9-15/11)

Abbreviated stuff. I’m still in NYC and probably won’t have time to respond to comments promptly, but hey, there’s the usual pitcher/hitter/transaction stuff, and a few random notes as I have seen fit. As stated before, the next wrap will be off-schedule as well. Also, we signed a Cuban left-hander last week, and I know at least a few things about him.

I don’t pretend I can understand Mike Carp’s performances, but that he was the PCL Hitter of the Week is no surprise at all. Basically, my issues with Carp are like this: last year, he hit .200/.300/.324 against left-handed pitching. This wouldn’t be bad in and of itself, after all, there’s no shortage of younger left-handed sluggers who struggle against left-handed pitching, except that the circumstances surrounding it are weird. His splits were practically non-existent in 2009, and for all the issues he had with lefties last year, he doubled his home run output over 2009. And there you have it. Mike Carp: enigma. May he not be the next Mike Wilson.

To claim that Castro has recently found some level of consistency doesn’t seem right. He walked five in his first start of May, and his start this week was good, but not exceptional. His left/right splits are of some interest to me though. His ground/fly is roughly the same in both cases, but he’s around the strikezone a lot more against left-handed bats, running a 13/3 K/BB in 11.0 and allowing eighteen hits. Versus right-handed bats, he walks a man every other inning, but doesn’t allow nearly as many hard-hit balls. I wonder how opposing managers plan on setting up their lineups to face him.

From The Training Room:
The transaction front at all levels was far busier this week than it has been in previous ones. For the Rainiers, it started out with the loss of Peguero and Mike Wilson to the Mariners on Monday. To compensate, they got CF Brandon Haveman from Jackson again, because someone needs to play CF when Guti is DHing… Wednesday afternoon, 1B Matt Mangini landed on the DL with a left quad injury. It had been his right quad that had been bugging him before. It’s like Stephen Kahn and knees, except hopefully not so freaky/severe. Ryan Langerhans was also successfully outrighted… A day later, the Rainiers stole another Jackson General, taking away DH Luis Antonio Jimenez, who had been hitting .359/.425/.609… With Jeff Gray added, Dan Cortes was optioned back to Tacoma and LHP Edward Paredes was transferred to Jackson because honestly he’s sucked this season.

Assuming that nothing else changes and he merely continues on at exactly the same pace as he’s started at (which I’ll remind you is nearly impossible), this would end up being Triunfel’s best offensive season, even better than the High Desert-influenced one he had a few years back. Up to this point in his career, only 20% of his hits were going for extra-bases and he’s now at close to twice that for this season. He’s also projecting out to a career high in Ks, though that still would only be roughly eighty, and he’ll likely walk 20+ which will rank second-best in his career. And though he’s made some errors here and there, he’s reported to be handling shortstop well enough. Carlos Triunfel is finally an interesting prospect!

Carraway got his rotation spot this week, but not under the best of circumstances. Wednesday evening, Kenn Kasparek was pulled after an inning and a third due to injury, and so Carraway filled in from there, throwing forty of sixty pitches for strikes, and assumed the spot the next time the rotation turned over (technically, as he relieved Shawn Kelley). In his two official starts of the season, he went eight total innings and let four runs (three earned) score on eight hits against seven Ks, and considering his command has been a little off this year, I’d say that there are lucky and unlucky aspects to that line. At least his home run rate has plummeted since he left High Desert.

From the Training Room:
When Haveman went back west, OF Kuo-hui Lo came off the DL. Roster maneuvering has been made somewhat simpler by the fact that the Generals opened the season with like eight players on the DL… A few days later, when Jimenez left, OF Eddy Martinez-Esteve came off the DL again (and went 7-for-13 on the week). Of course, to keep us from getting into expecting too much from patterns, when RHP Kenn Kasparek went on the DL, RHP Keli’I Zablan was added from Peoria… A few days after that, the Generals hit Ctrl + Z on that move and got Paredes and RHP Taylor Stanton from High Desert to fill a rotation spot. Why it wasn’t Gillheeney, I can’t tell you.

Like with Carp, this was another “it wasn’t going to be anyone else” situation, and the Cal League offices agreed. Like a lot of Mavericks hitters, he also has a bit of a home/road split, batting .358/.444/.627 in Adelanto and .378/.390/.473 on the road. The lack of road walks is particularly weird, but I don’t know what I’d be able to make of it. The sad thing is that even if he continues at this rather torrid pace, I probably would still end the season saying “Let’s see what he does in double-A!” It’s also kind of less exciting when everyone else hits really well because, hey, homestand.

This wasn’t easy, because it was either pick a pitcher who logged a quality-ish start (Medina, Fernandez) or throw in a reliever who pitched fewer than four innings (Ogui Diaz, Cooper), and neither possibility excited me. You don’t expect pitching in a homestand for High Desert, but you hope for something that looks like survival. For his part, Sorce hung in there, and if the team had pulled him instead of trying to run him out to start the seventh, he would have had a hit and a couple of unearned runs knocked off his line.

From the Training Room:
Some trading of players between Clinton and High Desert this week. They picked up CF Matt Cerione (who immediately went 4-for-4 with a walk) from Clinton and sent OF Kalian Sams east. Cerione has some strikeout issues, but probably should have been in High Desert to start the year anyway. Sams, meanwhile, is at the Mendoza line, but had an isolated slugging of .383, proving that a player can be interesting and fun to watch without being any kind of prospect. They also added RHP Willy Kesler, who had been the best reliever for the Lumberkings… Later in the week, they lost Stanton to West Tenn, for some reason, and traded LHP Jonathan Hesketh to Clinton for LHP Anthony Fernandez, which also makes a limited amount of sense. Hesketh spent half of last season with the Mavericks and lost little in the transition from Clinton. His start to the season was rough, but so was that of half a dozen other guys. Fernandez meanwhile had a 19/16 K/BB ratio in 29.2 innings for Clinton to start the season. I am making a fuss about minor league transactions. This is what I do.

We’re used to Ichiro having off Aprils, and getting the idea that Ackley may as well. Wiswall, too, had a pretty crummy start to the year, batting .189/.259/.230 for the month, but since the calendar turned over, he’s batted .317/.388/.433 and cut his strikeout rate from 28.4% of his at-bats to a more managable 16.7%, bumping up his walks in the process. However, we are still waiting on the power stroke that made him interesting last year and in his college days. Perhaps we’ll see that in June? At least he’s pretty awesome in the outfield.

Friday afternoon, Paxton became only the second farmhand to strike out ten or more this season (teammate Taijuan Walker would become the third on Sunday). This would give him a total of nineteen Ks in 17.0 innings, which sounds about right, but his command has been off and thus far he’s walked four men in each one of his starts. Of course, going back to his college tenure, you had him walking sixteen in 17.2 innings as a freshman, twenty-five in 52.1 innings as a sophomore, and twenty in 78.1 innings as a junior, so some of this was perhaps to be expected. Let’s just hope that he works it out of his system soon.

From the Training Room:
Monday, the Clinton Lumberkings roster got all shook up. Among the additions: LHP Nate Reed, IF Matt Browning, SS Jake Schlander, OF Robbie Anston, Sams. Among the departures: Cerione and Kesler to greener pastures (or thinner air at least), and SS Marcus Littlewood and 3B Ramon Morla to Peoria. I could spend several days analyzing this series of moves, but the gist of it is that the M’s player development wanted to give the younger guys the challenge, but unlike the previous administration, was not willing to abide it if they were posting .450 OPS and decided instead to give them closer instruction in Peoria. It gives you fewer reasons to tune into Lumberkings games, but is probably good for the players overall… The next day, OF Julio Morban went on the DL, which is upsetting, and OF Kevin Rivers came off it, which is okay I guess. I don’t know what Morban’s on the DL with or how long he’ll be there… I’ve already talked about trading Anthony Fernandez and Jonathan Hesketh, so this is the part of the wrap where I mention again that it doesn’t really make sense to me.

Strange Happenings:
Hesketh picked off two men in a game, which I don’t imagine happening all that often. Of course, Wiswall had two outfield assists on Tuesday again, so defense has kind of been weird all around… Once I get back from New York, I’m going to try to queue up some interviews from the LumberBlog, which has sat down with Rich Dorman, Wisconsin broadcaster Chris Mehring, Dan Wilson, Casey Brett (assistant to Pedro Grifol and nephew of George), and Taijuan Walker, all in the past week!

Tags:

Comments

15 Responses to “Minor League Wrap (5/9-15/11)”

dnc on
May 18th, 2011 8:48 am

Great stuff as always Jay! Hopefully we’ll find out something on Morban soon. I was really hoping he could make it through the year healthy.

Brantid on
May 18th, 2011 10:41 am

The number of prospects I am interested in keeps increasing. Thanks for the write up.

Screw it, let’s call him up once we’re out of contention for the West and Figgins is gone. I’d love to believe that Liddi’s spring and performance this year in AAA aren’t anomalies.

maqman on
May 18th, 2011 10:48 am

Erasmo Ramirez is looking pretty good so far, as are Jake Schaffer, Seagar and Poythress. They have the Generals in first place.

Chris_From_Bothell on
May 18th, 2011 11:40 am

Ibuprofen – Do you really think Figgins is going to be gone before mid next year at the very least? I don’t know who Z could trade him to, and they certainly aren’t going to eat close to half his contract.

I mean, I’m sick of Figlet too, but I think we’re kind of stuck with him for at least another year.

I’d love to believe that Liddi’s spring and performance this year in AAA aren’t anomalies.

Mike Curto and Dave got into an interesting twitter debate a few days ago where Curto was claiming that everyone was underselling Liddi’s defensive improvements right now.

msfanmike on
May 18th, 2011 1:14 pm

I mean, I’m sick of Figlet too, but I think we’re kind of stuck with him for at least another year.

Fortunately, the Braves need a dynamic leadoff hitter. Unfortunately, Figgins is not dynamic. Or good. Or much past barely passable. The Braves were at one time interested in Figgins and maybe they will get desperate enough to settle for something Figgins’esque. I do agree, though – it would take a sizeable salary chomp and probably a decent prospect to make a trade with the Braves for any players of theirs that might interest the Mariners.

Taijuan Walker’s start has to be the minor league performance of the year. Either that or Carp’s 3HR game.

He hasn’t been consistent, but I’m incredibly encouraged by what we’ve seen from Walker. I think it’s been a down year for prospects overall; so many guys that could’ve taken a step forward have gotten off to rotten starts (Nate Tenbrink, George Mieses, Ramon Morla, etc.). And yet Walker’s emergence means it’s basically been a decent month and a half – give me a couple of A- guys over 5 B- guys any day.

SonOfZavaras on
May 18th, 2011 1:50 pm

Sterling stuff as always, Jay.

Julio Morban, hurt again. Sigh and damn it.

I really believe this kid’s got the cookies to be something, if he can only stay off the DL. He’s not the same kind of player exactly, but it may be Christopher Doyle Snelling all over again for us.

Westside guy on
May 18th, 2011 2:35 pm

Erasmo Ramirez

This guy deserves a call-up simply based on nickname possibilities!

Although most of them probably can’t be used on radio or television, come to think of it.

He hasn’t been consistent, but I’m incredibly encouraged by what we’ve seen from Walker. I think it’s been a down year for prospects overall; so many guys that could’ve taken a step forward have gotten off to rotten starts (Nate Tenbrink, George Mieses, Ramon Morla, etc.). And yet Walker’s emergence means it’s basically been a decent month and a half – give me a couple of A- guys over 5 B- guys any day.

Right. It’s been an odd year in many respects because the guys you’ve mentioned are sputtering a bit (add Littlewood, who was very highly regarded in some circles, to that list, along with Homerin’ Chavez and James Jones), but we’ve had a few guys moving surely up the charts (Liddi, Triunfel, Walker being justified in his ranking) and others maintaining earlier quality (Seager, Catricala, Erasmo) or at least doing interesting things (Poythress) and maybe trying to work their way onto the fringe of top 30s (Carroll, Shaffer, Mar Mar, Seco). Last year was landmark one for the system when we had one of the highest winning percentages, but those sorts of things mean so little that they’re hard to really make anything substantive of. It’s kind of a down year, but on an individual level, certain things are getting done.

Or take this factoid from the Lumberblog today:

Clinton is now 3-13 in the month of May, dropping their season record to a MWL-worst 10-29. Not many ways to sugar-coat it, but chew on this statistic…of the 13 May losses, the Kings have had the tying or winning runs either at the plate or in the on-deck circle in their final at-bat nine times and have scored eight runs total in the ninth inning. They’ve lost by three runs five times, two runs five times and one run four times in that 13-game span.

Julio Morban, hurt again. Sigh and damn it.

I really believe this kid’s got the cookies to be something, if he can only stay off the DL. He’s not the same kind of player exactly, but it may be Christopher Doyle Snelling all over again for us.

What burns me about this is that I had just finished and turned in an article for Grand Salami where I was talking about how he’s finally healthy. I don’t even know how badly he’s injured.

This guy deserves a call-up simply based on nickname possibilities!

Although most of them probably can’t be used on radio or television, come to think of it.

We’ve been down that road before. I’m backing him because it’s been a while since Nicaragua has had a really interesting prospect up, though the Royals have this Cuthbert kid that a lot of people are into.

I’m not sure that Liddi’s winning over a lot of converts. A lot of people think he has huge holes in his swing and won’t be a MLB third baseman.

I see where they’re coming from, and I’ve said repeatedly that he was the worst “prospect” I’d ever seen at the plate in mid-April. He’s also really intriguing right now. He’s improved so much, it makes me wonder what the hell he was doing in April, except striking out all the time. Was he sick?

Good call on Chavez and James Jones. Seriously, we could keep rattling off the names – it’s been brutal. I’m heartened by the fact that Liddi and Mike Carp started terribly, and that James Jones did the same damn thing last year, but… there are a lot of guys on the top 20/30 lists playing like crap right now (Blake Beavan, Dennis Raben). I suppose it’s nice that Shaffer and Seager help balance the equation, but it makes me think of just how volatile this is.

There’s no way to improve this – prospects go through slumps sometimes, context matters especially when you promote from the midwest league to High Desert, etc. – but it’s kind of amazing to me. Jharmidy De Jesus, Mario Martinez and Raben were top 10 guys in 2009, then Noriega and Jones were top 10 guys in 2010. Tenbrink, Chavez and Morla were candidates for the top 10 in 2011. Kind of astonishing, really.

Again, I’m OK with so many hitters putting up abysmal april/may lines because Tai Walker apparently throws the heaviest ball in America (in his 11K game, he yielded no air balls. No fly balls, no line drives)

The emergence of Erasmo Ramirez has been one of the better stories of the year. Can’t wait to see him in Tacoma at some point. That’d be a terrible league for him, but at this point, I don’t care. Keep on walking nobody and getting GBs, Erasmo.

Matt the Dragon on
May 18th, 2011 3:40 pm

They’ve lost by three runs five times, two runs five times and one run four times in that 13-game span.

You know things are bad when you lose 14 games out of 13.

bookbook on
May 18th, 2011 10:00 pm

I’d be tempted to bring up Carp in a few weeks in place of Peguero/Saunders.

Sorry if you’ve covered this recently, but is there any plan to update the Future 40 soon? I appreciate all of the hard work you put into these detailed updates, but it would be great to have an updated overview of the system’s most interesting prospects.